Canadiens well-positioned to address needs with fifth-overall pick

MONTREAL — It won’t be Macklin Celebrini, but the Montreal Canadiens should be confident they’ll land a bona fide top-six forward with the fifth-overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.

Not that general manager Kent Hughes would commit to taking one just minutes after the results of the league’s draft lottery were revealed and Celebrini — the guaranteed top pick — was awarded to the San Jose Sharks, who bottomed out with a 19-45-9 record and had the best chances of landing first overall. But the Canadiens’ general manager was already on record at his end-of-season press conference saying that, “with all things equal,” he would prioritize drafting a forward with his first pick and he reaffirmed that position more than once during the 18-minute Zoom conference he held directly following Tuesday’s lottery. 

That was after Hughes expressed his excitement to remain in fifth position and qualified the Canadiens’ scouting staff as “very confident that we’ll be able to draft a very good player at fifth overall.”

Sure, Hughes hedged. He intimated that the overflow at left defence on the Canadiens’ depth chart wouldn’t prohibit him from drafting a right-handed defenceman if one proved to be the best player available in the eyes of his scouts, and he’d still be addressing a need — albeit less of one — if he did that.

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Hughes also left the door open to the possibility he’d move up or down the order to secure whatever best helps the Canadiens advance both their immediate and long-term plans.

But Hughes said, “I think the percentages largely favour us picking,” and it’s fair to assume the odds favour the Canadiens taking a forward.

It’s not like he’ll have to bend over backwards to sell that the player the Canadiens ultimately choose will be the best available to them when they step onto the draft stage at the Las Vegas Sphere. The variance in public rankings being as wide as we’ve ever seen will only help him make the case.

The private ones we inquired about in the lead-up to Tuesday’s lottery all had one thing in common — a belief that the level of interchangeability in the top-10 is higher than it’s been at any point in recent years.

In speaking with scouts from three different teams — all of them refused to provide detailed rankings — they all agreed that Celebrini was in a class of his own and that the debates on who’ll come after him are justifiably as heated as can be.

“Every team always has a different list, and it’s always in the eye of the beholder,” said one scout. “But there isn’t much separation between the top defencemen and top forwards available after the top pick and there isn’t much separation between the best in each category when looking at the defencemen and forwards most likely to go in the top 10. So, need factors in more. (This dynamic is) making our own meetings more interesting than they’ve been in a while.”

Hughes said the Canadiens will reconvene for theirs next week and finalize their list coming out of them.

Perhaps some of the top right-shooting defencemen get mixed into it, but we can’t help but think it’ll be led by the best forwards available not named Celebrini. And we don’t see any controversy in that.

If the Canadiens have one ranked ahead of the others, whom they believe is guaranteed to go ahead of where they’re slated to pick, Hughes will try to move up.

If he can’t do it, and the next-best forward on the Canadiens’ list is available at five but could also be available at six, seven, eight, nine or 10 based on their intel, then perhaps he’ll move down.

But if the incentive isn’t large enough to move up or down, Hughes can just stand pat, choose a forward, and likely argue that player was equal or better to the best defenceman available at five.

It wouldn’t be a divergence from what he already advanced as a plan.

“I think what I’ve said is: All things equal, we would draft a forward,” Hughes said. “And I think that remains the case.”

We think it should. 

By our count, the Canadiens have 13 viable defencemen who could be competing for jobs on their blue line next season. Among them, 10 are under 24 years old, and as many as five of those 10 project to be top-four defencemen. 

Even if they’re thinner on the right side, they have three promising players there in David Reinbacher, Logan Mailloux and Justin Barron.

But the Canadiens don’t have a surplus of talent at forward.

It is there the Canadiens have a deficit, and the opportunity to at least partially address it was confirmed on Tuesday.

There was slim hope of landing Celebrini to bridge much more of the gap, but it was dashed at NHL Network studios when commissioner Bill Daly finally flipped over the Canadiens’ logo during the league’s live broadcast of the lottery.

The same thing happened last year, when the Canadiens had the same 8.5 per cent chance of landing Connor Bedard but remained in fifth.

But Hughes wasn’t discouraged then, and he isn’t discouraged now.

“They’re franchise-altering hockey players, so you certainly hope to win,” he said. “But the reality is that the percentages of the lottery are such that the most likely outcome, I think, is that we pick six. 

“In that regard, we’ve had good luck with the lottery. When we finished last and were due to pick first, we did. And the other two, we (landed) where we were set based on the end of the regular-season standings.”

Finishing 28^th overall a season ago netted the Canadiens Reinbacher, who went back to Switzerland to play one more season with Kloten but is expected to debut in the NHL as early as the fall of 2024.

Finishing 28^th this past season could bring another right-handed defenceman like Artyom Levshunov or Zayne Parekh at fifth overall.

But they could both easily be gone by the fifth pick. At least one of them likely will be.

That would only leave more premium talent up front to choose from for the Canadiens, if that proves to be the case.

Ivan Demidov, who appears (by consensus) to be the next-best forward in class, has talent they probably can’t turn away from.

But if the skilled Russian goes to the Chicago Blackhawks second, or the Anaheim Ducks third, or the Columbus Blue Jackets fourth, the Canadiens will still have several good options available to them. Especially if two of those teams take defencemen.

Cayden Lindstrom is a six-foot-four, 216-pound dynamic centre who ranks as high as three and as low as six on public lists, but who’s to say the Canadiens would be off base in considering any one of Tij Iginla, Berkly Catton, Beckett Sennecke or Konsta Helenius a better option? Or even Cole Eiserman, who (with 127 goals) just broke Cole Caufield’s scoring record for the United States National Development Team Program?

They’re all players expected to become top-six NHL forwards, even if some might come along later than others.

“If we don’t get someone ready for next year, we should get someone who would be ready not too long after,” said Hughes. 

Whoever it is should help partially fill a desperate need for his team, joining Caufield, Nick Suzuki, 2022 first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky and 2019 third-overall pick Kirby Dach in the Canadiens’ top six.

Hughes might even be able to add at least one more player there this summer. He’s got another first-round pick in hand, two 2025 first-rounders in his pocket and — as already noted — a plethora of young defencemen to deal from to make a trade that potentially lands an elite forward. 

He’s also got some money to play with in free agency and no plans to be back in the lottery next season.

“We definitely want to progress from one year to another,” Hughes said. “We talked about it at our end-of-season press conference that we felt it was time for us to progress and to be in the mix (for the playoffs). And if that ends up being the case, we’ll be drafting later next season.”

It’s too early to predict what the Canadiens’ priority will be then, but they have an excellent opportunity to address their current ones.

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